Misinformation at the New York Times

Editors' Note: On September 30, 2012, Lucine Kasbarian of NJ and MA sent a letter (please see below) to the New York Times in response to misinformation printed in the travel article written by journalist Russ Juskalian, titled "Off the Map in the Black Garden," which appeared in the September 21, 2012 New York Times edition. To date, the paper has not published her letter. She has granted her permission for it to be published here.

Writer Russ Juskalian’s curiosity about his ancestry prompted his visit to this historically Armenian territory, and yet his reporting demonstrates a failure to grasp certain fundamental facts.

Armenian Karabakh was given to Azerbaijan in 1923 by Josef Stalin to placate Turkey -- kin to Turkic Azerbaijan. A natural desire by Karabagh Armenians to be reunited with Armenia, driven by the 1988 Azeri pogroms of Armenians in Sumgait, propelled the Armenian self-defense movement that culminated in the Karabakh War (1988-1994).

Juskalian’s article improperly states that the War originated because of pogroms on both sides and falsely claims that genocided Armenians genocided civilians beyond the battleground. He thus perpetuates falsehoods and trivializes a victorious struggle against oppression, especially when his article appears on the Armenian independence anniversary and following a deplorable Azeri act.

One must wonder why NATO and the “great policeman of the world” have done nothing about it. On September 25, 2012, Azeri snipers killed a 19-year old Armenian soldier, the latest in countless Azeri killings across the line of contact. Why mislead readers about politics on the ground by publishing an NKR travel article when even NATO will not enter the region to control naked Azeri aggression, which is a routine occurrence?